Bin Ladenism: the Kidnapping of Cameroonian Leaders Wife and what this means for Geo-Political Paradigm

The state of play in current political paradigms has shifted dramatically when speaking about Geo-Politics and national security. Recently it was announced that the Cameroonian vice Prime Minister’s wife had been kidnapped by Boko Haram. this is a return to old world order Geo-Political climate where for instance in the 80’s impoverished Mafioso’s in Italy would kidnap rich Italian and foreign nationals and demand a ransom payment for their safe return. Or when Jet liners were routinely hijacked an order to demand ransom or cause political chaos.This is a byproduct of the Bin Ladenism of terrorist acts as well as the pervasive Russian influence in conflicts around the world via arm sales and military training.

One way to define Bin Ladenism is to take the attacks of 9/11 for example. For you see by attacking the U.S. homeland in such a spectacular fashion the bar then became raised for more and more spectacular ways of harming the U.S. and its allies. Think 3/11 in Spain, the attempted shoe and underwear bombers and so on and so forth. Since the death of Bin Laden and with the rise of even more radical strains of Islam (if that’s possible) the world has seen terrorist organizations become influence peddlers in the form of cold hard cash. This makes since, since by having large cash reserves you can declare yourselves to be the true defenders of Jihad, and Islamic fundamentalism. This is evident in recent Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s brash video of earlier this year, ISIS fighters declaring an Islamic state, and Boko Haram kidnapping girls and selling them into slavery.

This odd turn of events should not go unnoticed. We should be extra vigilant in this new paradigm with our diplomats and senior officials in the government. But we should also seek to make sure that influential individuals in the private sector are protected from kidnapping or worse when flying overseas to potentially hazardous locales. This should come in the form of travel alerts and overseas embassy closings if and when we suspect that a terrorist group may be plotting harm to any overseas westerners.